Counter Attack

Chapter 36

Growing discomfort made Mac move around in his chair. The story Charles was telling him was a few levels above what he’d prepared for when he arrived in Saigon.

‘The Chinese government is nominally communist,’ said Charles, starting on his second beer. ‘But the communist ideology, as a means, is distinct from the system as an end. History shows us that Chinese ruling systems all come and go but the imposition of authority and order are central to the Chinese experience.’

‘Sure,’ said Mac, knowing some Chinese history.

‘So communism may have been the flavour since 1949, but the reality of Chinese government is different.’

‘The reality is power factions, like any system,’ said Mac.

‘Precisely,’ said Charles. ‘We’ve had basically thirty years of economic progressives who have opened up China’s economy and allowed the development of an aggressive, wealthy middle class.’

‘I see,’ said Mac.

Charles lit a cigarette. ‘And you know what that means?’

‘Economic liberalism usually means social and political liberal- ism, even if only by degrees,’ said Mac, mentally dipping into some of his old history papers. ‘So if the Chinese middle classes become wealthy, successful and educated, the next thing that happens is their children want political representation.’

‘Australians seem to understand this instinctively,’ said Charles. ‘Americans are enjoying their cheap consumer goods so much that they don’t realise the source of these goodies is at a crossroads — a potentially shattering crossroads.’

‘Time to pay the piper.’

‘Well, yes,’ said Charles. ‘Either the middle classes smash the Central Committee’s control of Chinese politics, or an existing force arises from the elites and crushes political liberalism before it creates the revolution. Tiananmen Square was an illustration of what kind of forces lurk in the PLA, just waiting for an excuse.’

‘The nationalist right wing of the PLA?’ asked Mac, remembering the phrase from an intelligence briefing. Chinese elites had traditionally included ultranationalists of the type who gained ascendency in Japan in the 1920s — those who saw China as an expanding hegemony, enforcing its political, economic and even racial superiority.

‘That’s the one. Have you heard of General Xiang Pao Peng?’ said Charles.

‘Read about him in the Economist,’ said Mac. ‘What about him?’

‘He was marketing himself as the progressive leadership of the future, because of his education at Cambridge and Sandhurst. If you recall the slogan Peace through Prosperity, that came straight out of his office.’

‘You said “was”?’

‘He was sidelined by the Central Committee ten months ago because he was considered too ambitious,’ said Charles. ‘Among the economic progressives, Pao Peng is known as the face of Chinese chauvinism — a classic totalitarian nationalist with a fantasy about Greater China that makes the Japanese economic cooperation zone look quaint.’

‘He was sidelined?’ said Mac.

‘Yes, and he didn’t take it well.’

‘Pao Peng is heavily connected, isn’t he?’ said Mac, wishing he had been more thorough in his reading of circularised research. ‘I mean, he’s related to the marchers but he’s also aligned with bankers and industrialists. How did he get sidelined?’

‘He asked for support from the wrong people, is our guess,’ said Charles. ‘He apparently had a plan for a reorganisation of Beijing, and the new blueprint didn’t include a Central Committee.’

‘But it probably included the new Chinese oil provinces of Vietnam and Cambodia, with PLA navy bases at Cam Ranh and Ream?’ said Mac.

‘Sammy told me you knew your way around here,’ said Charles. ‘So Pao Peng’s in the dog box and his wealthy friends aren’t so obvious anymore. But then we uncovered Pao Peng’s Plan B — a plot to bring the Chinese economy to its knees and, during the chaos, take political control.’

‘How will he do that?’ said Mac, the hairs on the back of his neck pricking up.

‘We believe he is working with contractors to undermine the US dollar, which in turn will undermine the Chinese economy.’

‘That’s a drastic way to get the job you want.’

‘That’s what concerns us in DC,’ said Charles. ‘It will eventually correct itself, but by then Pao Peng would have seized on the inevitable Chinese economic disaster.’

‘How does Australia fit into this?’

‘We uncovered some top-secret data taken from the US Treasury,’ said Charles. ‘It didn’t seem like much to begin with, but when we put it all together, we believed it added up to a set of protocols that shouldn’t be in the wrong hands.’

‘And it’s sitting on that memory card?’ said Mac.

‘We don’t know, but we have to cross it off,’ said Charles. ‘And that’s where the Aussies come in.’

‘I don’t see —’ said Mac, but this time Sammy jumped in.

‘Remember I told you we weren’t necessarily on the same side, McQueen?’

‘Yeah, you said the Aussies were the problem not the solution… Oh, shit,’ said Mac as Geraldine McHugh’s name leapt to the forefront of his mind.

‘Let’s not jump to conclusions…’

‘Not her — she’s the thief?’ said Mac. ‘Geraldine McHugh’s a double agent?’

‘We can’t prove it, Alan,’ said Charles. ‘But we’re hoping you can help us clear it up.’

After three passes, Sammy stopped the Mazda across the road from the Holiday International. Cars and minivans glowed yellow in the car park floodlights.

Mac’s old Nokia buzzed and he grabbed at it in a panic, his nerves at the end of their rope. It was a text from Scotty: TNS, 10.55, meaning Tan Son Nhat Airport in Saigon.

‘Let’s cover your room together,’ said Sammy, checking his handgun for load and safety before opening his door. ‘Then I want my bags and car keys back, okay?’

‘Okay,’ said Mac. ‘But no one’s going into that room.’

Easing out of Sammy’s car, Mac lurked in the shadows of the hotel’s car park, waiting for eyes. None came and he moved towards the hotel’s rear, climbed a cyclone gate and walked through the service area of the hotel and into the laundry.

Handing his room card to a hotel porter named Nhean, Mac slipped a US ten-dollar note into the equation and asked the fellow to pick up his bags and bring them to the Mitsubishi van in the car park. Mac showed Nhean, who was about sixteen years old and friendly, another ten-dollar note but held it back. ‘This is for you if you can go into that room and get my stuff without turning on a light. You do it in the dark, okay?’

Nodding, Nhean turned to his task.

‘I’m serious,’ said Mac, grabbing the boy’s arm. ‘No lights. Got it?’

Waiting, Mac watched the service gate at the side of the hotel swing open exactly six minutes later and Nhean brought the wheelie cabin bag and backpacks to the van.

It wasn’t a bad start: no IEDs under the bags or behind the room’s door; no window assemblies flying into the car park. Paying Nhean the bonus, Mac decided to double it to twenty dollars. He’d already contributed to the death of one innocent hotel worker and he felt guilty at having to draw another into the web with the lure of US dollars. It wasn’t right and it wasn’t fair, but it could also be the difference between Mac living or dying.

Now he waited for signs of Nhean having been followed. After watching the back windows of the hotel and checking for movement, Mac decided it was clear and moved among the other parked vehicles to the Mitsubishi.

Sitting in Sammy’s car again, Mac stared at the hotel, looking for pattern breaks. ‘I know I asked to work with you guys, but now I know a bit more, I see problems.’

‘Shoot,’ said Sammy, also looking at the hotel.

‘I’m not a Treasury investigator — as soon as the Americans request me in their taskforce, Canberra will want to send a Treasury guy.’

‘There’re enough of them on this already.’

‘So,’ said Mac, the comment having confirmed the snippet Benny Haskell had given him, ‘Charles is US Treasury, and you’re Secret Service?’

‘No comment,’ said Sammy.

‘The other problem is obvious,’ said Mac. ‘To the Americans, McHugh is a thief; in Canberra, she might be working for someone. Thought about that?’

‘Charles is dealing with it — leave the politics to him.’

‘You want the other Mazda back?’ said Mac.

Pulling into the Cambodiana car park fifteen minutes later, Sammy drove around slowly as they looked for eyes. The Mazda they were looking for sat on its own, with no cars or vans close enough to create an ambush. Driving in a circle they closed on a series of minivans and drove at them with full beams on, verifying their windows were clear and no bodies were diving for the floor.

As they parked beside the Mazda, Mac asked for a flashlight. They got out and Mac walked straight to the boot, examined the latch for signs of tampering and then lay under the rear of the car and looked for explosives or a detonator.

Standing, Mac opened the boot before Sammy could get his hand on it.

‘Something interesting I found,’ said Mac, smiling.

‘Yeah?’ said Sammy, frowning as he joined Mac at the open boot.

‘Look at this,’ said Mac, pulling the lid off one of the cardboard boxes, revealing the stacks of US hundred-dollar notes. ‘I found this the other night, and it confused me.’

‘It’s been a tough few days,’ said Sammy.

Mac looked at the American. ‘There was a new Remington shottie in there, and in any trunk containing new firearms, the obvious smell would be the gun oil.’

‘You’d think,’ said Sammy.

‘Yeah, but there was this stink of new money,’ said Mac.

‘You talk too much,’ said the American, slamming the boot shut.